


Nobody Knows

by scheherazade



Category: Tenimyu RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 19:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11835069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherazade/pseuds/scheherazade
Summary: "I'm melting," Sho says piteously, collapsed on the bed in an artless sprawl. "No, scratch that. I've melted. I am now a puddle of a human being.""You're a sad excuse of a human being, is what you are."





	Nobody Knows

**Author's Note:**

> the saddest excuse of a human being is me. i'm so sorry.

"I'm melting," Sho says piteously, collapsed on the bed in an artless sprawl. "No, scratch that. I've melted. I am now a puddle of a human being."

"You're a sad excuse of a human being, is what you are. Here."

Sho catches the bottle of water tossed at his face, and gives him the best kicked-puppy look he can muster—which is not a very good kicked-puppy look, given his lanky height and inability to keep a straight face for longer than two seconds at a stretch.

"Taaakumaaaaaa," comes the predictable whine. Three concise syllables strung out across far too many beats and several notes off key. Worse, Sho starts laughing when he adds, "You should be nicer to me for my birthday."

"Um, your birthday's next week."

"My birth month?"

"Nice try."

"Can you blame me." Which doesn't even make sense. "You actually remembered."

"Hard to forget when someone can't shut up about it."

"Whatever makes you feel better." 

It's utterly ridiculous, the way he's smiling like it's the best thing he's heard all day. Sometimes—often—but not too often, because that would just be weird—Takuma wonders if Sho has a masochistic streak.

Sho sits up with a sudden grin. "Let's go out!"

"Excuse me?"

"Let's go explore the city. You speak Chinese. I'm a great tourist."

"You literally just said you're melting, and now you want to go outside?"

"Yes." Typical, that Sho doesn't even bother pretending there's any logic in what he says or wants. He's already on his feet and looking far too lively for a guy who was doing a near-perfect imitation of a dying amoeba not two minutes prior. "Anyway, you promised."

"Did I, now."

"I'm here for the authentic experience. You have cash on you?"

"Whoa, okay, hold up." Takuma stops him before Sho can do anything like rifle through his wallet. First of all, said wallet is currently in his pocket. Second— "Where are you planning on going?"

"Bubble tea!" The _duh_ is heavily implied. "Or, what do you call it— _Shin shu_ —"

" _Zhen zhu nai cha._ Literally, pearl tea." The _idiot_ is also implied. Not that Takuma is terribly confident in his own pronunciation. But he's definitely better than whatever just came out of Sho's mouth. Also, "I don't remember promising to buy you anything."

"It'll be cheap," Sho says with unwarranted confidence. "We just need to get away from the touristy places."

"What happened to you being a great tourist, Kato-san?"

"I have a guide now, kyouju."

Takuma rolls his eyes, which makes Sho laugh for no discernible reason. He really needs to work on that. At some point, he's going to land a role where a semi-permanent Cheshire cat grin isn't exactly an asset. For now, though.

"Anything for the fans, huh."

Sho follows him out the door, still smiling. "Sure."

 

* * *

 

Shanghai in September feels like summer having one last, long laugh. Autumn's arrival should have dampened the worst of it, but every thermometer still reads a steady 34°C. Within minutes, Takuma's shirt is sticking to his back. He checks the map again.

He wonders how Sho is holding up in the heat. He wonders why he cares, when it's Sho's fault they're wandering a maze of side streets with no signage in sight.

"Do you think they'd send a rescue team," Sho muses, "if we don't show up for dress rehearsal tomorrow?"

"They'll probably just stick a pair of glasses on Makishima. No one would even notice."

Sho blinks, then starts laughing, laughs harder, and doesn't stop even when Takuma elbows him because now they're making a scene.

"Hikaru would be good at it," Sho snickers once he's caught his breath. "But they won't find someone to replace you."

 _Obviously_ , Takuma doesn't say. No need, when Sho has basically said it for him. 

"I don't know," he demurs, for appearance's sake. "Toshiki doesn't have a lot to do in this show."

"Neither does Yuuya."

The look on his face must've said it all, because Sho starts laughing again.

"Okay, point." Sho wipes what might be an actual tear from his eye, or maybe it's just sweat, afternoon sliding into the stupor of early evening heat. The way he's smiling seems completely incongruous with the way he's always going on about Uno.

"Not Yuuya," Sho says. He's smiling to himself. "Maybe Yuu?"

"Over my dead body."

It slips out before he can check himself. Sho just laughs—as if the lapse in civility means nothing—and starts lobbing even more implausible suggestions for Yanagi Renji's understudy.

 

* * *

 

The sun has sunk behind the skyline by the time they start walking back, and Takuma has learned a thing or five.

One: bubble tea sold in tiny mom and pop shops (because Sho insisted, for an authentic experience) only come in one flavor and one temperature, and no amount of explaining—in what Chinese and English they can dredge up between the two of them—will result in a properly iced drink.

Two: unsweetened milk tea suits Takuma just fine. Sho, on the other hand, has the palate of a five year old and is incapable of drinking anything with fewer than four spoonfuls of sugar.

Three: understanding textbook Mandarin and deciphering dialect-infused Chinese are two very, very different skills.

Four: Sho is actually good at reading maps, which may constitute his one and only useful life skill. 

Five: Sho is a bastard for not offering up that information until _after_ Takuma has embarrassed himself trying to ask for directions, laughing as he finishes up the ice cream he'd made Takuma buy for him—in addition to the bubble tea—because "It's my birthday, remember?" and also because he is utterly, utterly shameless.

"But you already knew that," Sho says, chuckling to himself. "Anyway, that's kind of the whole point."

"Again, your birthday isn't until next week."

"I know."

"So there's no point, then."

"No. But you actually like me."

It's that awkwardly lilting tone of his, like he can't decide whether he meant to laugh or sing. The way he goes from whining to wired in less than half a second flat, oscillating from weird to words-fail-me in all the moments in between. 

Sho doesn't laugh at whatever look is on his face. Instead he smiles, the way he sometimes does when Takuma feels—knows—needs there to be a punch line just barely out of reach.

The heat's starting to get to him, too, he thinks. Out loud he says, 

"Nobody's here to appreciate your fanservice, you know."

"That's okay." Sho doesn't look even a little bit put out. "Not everything's about them."

"I don't think you're contractually allowed to think that."

"Our little secret, then."

The flat look he gets for that is one hundred percent deserved, and judging by the way he shrugs—almost sheepish, for once in his life—Sho knows it, too. Not that it stops him from laughing. Takuma isn't sure anything in the world can stop Sho from laughing when it suits him, enjoying life how he pleases, shameless and dancing only to his own beat.

"That's rich," Takuma says, "coming from the guy who's incapable of hanging out with someone without plastering photographic evidence of it all over Twitter."

"I haven't even been on Twitter today."

"Only because it's blocked."

"Do you want to hang out without anybody else knowing?"

"I try not to want impossible things."

"Why would that be impossible?"

"Because. Do you even know what discretion means?"

"Sure I do," Sho says easily. Too easily. He adds, "It's whatever you decide."

He's laughing to himself before he's even finished the sentence, and Takuma rolls his eyes for approximately the fiftieth time that day. A muscle in his cheek is starting to hurt from the effort of maintaining a straight face lest he ruin the effect.

"Shut the hell up, Kato Sho."

"Whatever you say, Takuma-san."

If Sho sees right through him, he says nothing of it. And somehow—against all reason—certainly against good taste—Takuma finds that he doesn't mind. This much, at least, can be just between the two of them.

 

* * *

 

 **Kato Sho @vithmic_sho**  
Thank you for the birthday messages, everyone.  
Kato Sho, 25 year old version, level up! (LOL)  
_7:21 AM - 21 Sep 2017_

 **Isawa Takuma @SUN_ISAWA**  
@vithmic_sho Puddle-san, happy birthday.  
This year, please try not to melt.  
_7:47 AM - 21 Sep 2017_

 **Kato Sho @vithmic_sho**  
@SUN_ISAWA Takkuma~ Let's get pearl tea again next year ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ  
_7:52 AM - 21 Sep 2017_

 **Isawa Takuma @SUN_ISAWA**  
@vithmic_sho So you put it on Twitter after all…  
_7:58 AM - 21 Sep 2017_


End file.
